Muang Thong: Fowler leave and Mario Gjurovski arrives

Thursday, February 09 2012

Do things in a big way, apparently seems to be Muang Thongs slogan for the new season. After the first season without a title in five years the club increased his budget for the first time on more than 100 million Baht. With Adnan Barakat a high-quality was signed already a few weeks ago. With Mario Gjurovski the next transfer coup succeeded.

If we speak of high-quality players, of course we do this it's relative to football in Thailand. In the case of Macedonian Mario Gjurovski this cachet could be even valid in relation for European football. In 2009 he was linked with Bayer Leverkusen as a successor to Toni Kroos, and was recommended to the "Werkself" by Dragoslav Stepanović. During the winter break 2010/11, Werder Bremen and TSV 1860 Munich reportedly showed interested in him.

But at last the performance curve of the international 26-year-old clearly went down recently. Under John Toshak he debuted for the national team of Macedonia in 2010 and moved to Metalurh Donetsk from FK Vojvodina in 2011. There he signed a 3 year contract, however, hardly got any playing time and even was put in the reserve of the club. Gjurovski is known for his excellency handling the ball but is also known as a difficult character and bon viveur.

Together with Barakat, arrived from FC Baku, Gjurovski task will be to pull the strings in midfield. Barakat, Gjurovski and Datsakorn. Sounds like after a brilliantly midfield. Whether this is going to work to perfection remains to be seen. Three players of such a class and most likely ego's on the pitch might not gel well and Datsakorn could be one who could have to leave the club sooner or later because of this.

By whom the midfield trio is coached in the new season, is still open. One person for sure will have a nothing from the new budget and new signings. Robbie Fowler. The former superstar who half of a year ago arrived to Thailand, has come to an agreement with the club about terminating his contract. Fowler had been signed as a player in first place but took over the coaching reign after the leaving of Henrique Calisto. In the dismissal of the Portuguese Calisto he should not have been quite innocent.

Right from the beginning Fowler was warmly welcomed by fans and equipped with a lot of credit. Finally, "God" played here. With increasing time of his tenure, and not least because of disappointing performances, he lost his credit. In the FA cup final on 11 January against Buriram, it seemed like he wanted to know it for a very last time and fielded himself for a full 120 minutes. His side eventually lost by a slim margin, 1-0, with the goal of the night scored on extra time.

One of Thailand's English newspapers "Bangkok Post", cited him as follows a few days after the defeat. "I want to take responsibility after the team failed to get good results" On his official Twitter account, Robbie Fowler denied to have made this quote and consigned it to the realms of fantasy. Muang Thong General Manager Ronnarit Suewaja "Know why I quit" he tweeted. It was one few Tweets from Fowler about his time in Thailand.

In contrast to Zesh Rehman, Robbie Fowler at the end was not the expected ambassador for Thailand and his football. Although his signing had sharpened the profile of Muang Thong United in the world of football. Now the final curtain for Robbies career seems to fall in India. Most likely he is going to kick the ball around for Calcutta in the newly founded franchise league "Premier League Soccer" (PLS), for just a few weeks time.

Until a new coach is found, Milan Josic will lead the training. By now the preparation for the new season of the two-time Thai champion begins like that on 2011. Not a good sign.